Timerman meets with Jewish community to report on talks with Iran

The Argentine minister said there are no trade interests involved in talks with Teheran

Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman met with the relatives of victims of the Buenos Aires 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing to update them on negotiations with Iran. The update came three months after Timerman's first public meeting with his Iranian counterpart.

“The only business that we have in this case is for Iran to deliver the accused to justice. There isn’t any other interest. The government and the relatives are on the same path, which is to find those responsible [for the attack] and obtain an Argentine judiciary sentence against them,” Timerman told journalists after the meeting.

He also said that the Argentine Congress will be asked to approve the final result of the negotiations.

The minister also recalled that Argentina is the only country that has convinced Interpol to issue arrest warrants against several Iranian officials which according to Argentine prosecutors were involved in the attack.

Timerman on Wednesday visited the rebuilt AMIA headquarters, the Jewish community center of Buenos Aires, to meet with the relatives of the AMIA attack victims.

Relatives of the victims who participated in the meeting said that they were pleased to have received an update from Timerman. The possibility of a trial in a third country was not mentioned by the foreign minister.

However Julio Schlosser head of AMIA was not enthusiastic and said “Iran is not a valid party” because “they will never deliver us the accused”.

Timerman met for the first time with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, on Sept. 27 at the United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss the 1994 AMIA bombing case.

The attack on the Jewish community’s main complex in Buenos Aires killed 85 and wounded and maimed hundreds.

Iran is accused of directing the bombing that allegedly was carried out by the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah.

Tehran in a July 16, 2011 statement said it was willing to hold “constructive dialogue” with Argentina to “shed all possible light” on the case. It offered condolences to the victims' families while denying responsibility for the blast.

In October 2010, Iran rejected Argentina's proposal to put its accused citizens on trial in a neutral country.